Stories, poems, thoughts and letters from patients
and nurses who have touched each others lives in special ways. NAA is created
and maintained by Christy Gerber Jones,
an RN at Miami Valley Hospital,
Dayton, Ohio.

Patients
Say The Funniest ThingsSometimes the truth is more amusing than fiction. If you
have funny stories about your patients or situations in your medical environment,
please email them and we will share
them here for all to read.

I work as a Diabetic specialist
nurse. An elderly lady was in clinic, and I asked her if she could
read the eye chart for me covering her left eye.
"I can' t dear," came her reply.
Okay cover your other eye and read the chart.
"I can't dear," was the reply again.I thought for a moment. then asked if she could read."Oh yes dear" came the reply.Well read the chart for me then."I can't dear," came the reply again.By this time I was puzzled. So asked if she could see the
chart."Oh yes dear," came the reply.
Feeling frustrated by this time, I asked why she could not read the chart.The answer came "because I can't pronounce it!"
Submitted by: Christine Pearson

I was
interviewing an elderly man who was being admitted to my unit. I finally
got to the cardiovascular conditions and asked him if he had angina. He replied
"Why no! That is a female part." - Submitted by April Cummings

When I was a student a nursing colleague of mine
was asked by a patient if his testes had gone black. Silently she pulled
the screens around the bed, asked him to drop his pyjama bottoms and had a
look. 'No everythings fine,' she reassured him, 'What made you think
something was wrong?' 'I didn't think anything was wrong,' he replied, 'I
only asked if my test results had come back.' Submitted by: Julia Macdonald

One day, we had a very confused patient sitting at
the nursing station. We kept her near the nursing station so we could monitor
her safety. The woman kept insisting to all who could hear that she
was pregnant and in labor. Our medical director came walking down the
hall just in time to hear all the commotion. He began to assess her
and interview her regarding her "labor pains". He asked the patient
exactly how she could have become pregnant at her age. She gave him
a very bewildered look and said matter-of-factly 'Why if you don't know
by now doctor, I don't feel like it's my place to tell you!'

Someone at work posted a copy of some of the stories
from your site so I had to look it up myself. I especially enjoyed this section."
One question on our admission form is designed to assess a patient's orientation:
"where are you now?" Many times the answer is "I'm right here!" Enjoyed
the site and I'll be back.

A nurse at the beginning of the shift places her
stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient's anterior chest
wall. "Big breaths," instructed the nurse. "Yes, they used to be," remorsed
the patient.

One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I
told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not
more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family
that he had died of a "massive internal fart."

I was performing a complete physical, including the
visual acuity test. I placed the patient twenty feet from the chart
and began, Cover your right eye with your hand." He read the 20/20 line perfectly.
"Now your left." Again, a flawless read. "Now both," I requested.
There was silence He couldn't even read the large E on the top line.
I turned and discovered that he had done exactly what I had asked; he was
standing there with both his eyes covered. I was

A nurses' aide was helping a patient into the bathroom
when the patient exclaimed,"You're not coming in here with me. This is a one-seater."

During a patient's two week follow-up appointment
with his cardiologist, he informed his doctor that he was having trouble with
one of his medications. "Which one?", asked the doctor. "The patch." The
nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I'm running out
of places to put it!" The doctor had him quickly undress and discovered what
he hoped he wouldn't see....Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his
body! Now the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying
a new one.

While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient,
I asked, "How long have you been bedridden?" After a look of complete confusion
she answered, "Why, not for about twenty years-when my husband was alive."

And of course, the best is saved for last.... A nurse
caring for a woman from Kentucky asked, "So how's your breakfast this morning?"
"It's very good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can't seem to get
used to the taste," the patient replied. The nurse asked to see the jelly
and the woman produced a foil packet labeled "KY Jelly."